Business Jet Traveler

Rockwell Collins is buying Arinc's SKYLink broadband and plans to reintroduce it under its own eXchange brand. According to the agreement, Rockwell Collins will supply the airborne broadband hardware and after-sales support and Arinc will provide the Ku-band satellite service. Arinc will continue to handle SKYLink system sales and

The seventh European Business Aviation Convention and Exhibition, which took place in Geneva in May, broke all records, with attendance up 15 percent from the 2006 event to more than 11,000 and 354 exhibitors, an 18-percent increase. Orders inked at the show-firm and optional-had a total value of nearly $1.7 billion.

Signature Flight Support's new $13 million fixed-base operation (FBO) at Boston Logan International Airport is up and running. The two-story, 13,000-square-foot facility includes passenger and crew lounges, administrative offices and a private VIP center with separate street and ramp-side entrances for visiting dignitaries.

Some parents are booking jets to fly their children to summer camp rather than sending them off by bus, according to two New York-basedair charter companies. Revolution Air assigned more than 20 aircraft to the task in June, and Blue Star Jets has reported making "more and more" such flights.

In the years that I've written for Business Jet Traveler, I've discussed nearly everything that affects your choices as a charter user. There's at least one factor I haven't covered, though: the FBO or fixed-base operator, through whose lobby you pass to board your charter jet.

Jets.com-an online charter broker that allows customers to bid on flights-has bestowed its latest Circle of Excellence awards on eight charter operators, based solely on surveys its customers complete after each flight. Survey criteria included condition and cleanliness of the aircraft, amenities, crew performance, luggage handling and flight readiness.

To encourage owners to make their aircraft available for charter, Executive Jet Management will waive management and conformity fees for charter-friendly airplanes that are available for more than 200 flight hours per year.

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“When you get into the larger aircraft it becomes like a hotel, with dozens of staff supporting the plane based in a galley area down below. You have very comprehensive cooking facilities, and on larger aircraft we have looked at theatres, with spiral staircases and a Steinway grand piano. The limitations for what you can put inside a plane are pretty much the limits of physics, and even money cannot always overcome that. Even so, people are still always trying to push [the limits]. ”